


unnamed things

by fishycorvid



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: AU/Canon Divergent/Missing Scene, Angst, Banter, Crime, F/M, Fluff, Major Character Injury, Pining, Plotty, Unresolved Tension, based on a tumblr prompt, but they don’t know it yet, cases, in which they don’t call each other by their real names ever, like around the pilot, set in very early season 1, some violence, until one of them gets hurt ;)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 04:05:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15040310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishycorvid/pseuds/fishycorvid
Summary: in which they don’t call each other by their real names until one of them gets hurt while undercover.





	unnamed things

**Author's Note:**

> blame tumblr. I tried to make them as in character as possible. enjoy!

It _is_ kind of weird, they think to themselves at very nearly the exact same time (as they so often do), that they’ve never addressed each other by their real name. It’s always Pineapples, or Death Wish, or Hall Monitor, or Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes, because let’s be real, they’re basically just first graders when it comes to dumb, immature nicknames, or it’s their surnames because those roll off the tongue better when you’re teasing someone. _Peralta. Santiago_.  


They haven’t been Jake and Amy, really; the closest they've ever come is Dets. Jacob Peralta and Amy Santiago, but other than that they’ve only ever been Santiago and Peralta to each other. Maybe one day if they’re lucky, it’ll be Jake and Amy. Or even _JakeandAmy,_ inseparable, one inherent in the existence of the other. But not today. Today, and every day, they’re Santiago and Peralta.

And yeah, maybe they think it’s kind of weird.

But it feels natural, almost. Easy. Any discrepancy between that idea and the reality of the situation is ignorable, even normal.

So, mostly, they don’t worry about it.  
  


* * *

It’s probably the most dangerous and reckless undercover stint they’ve ever been on in either of their relatively short lives, but instead of being responsible and safe, they’re bickering about the characters they’ve got while wandering aimlessly through the shadier side of the ninety-ninth precinct.

“I swear to God, Peralta, if you don’t shut the hell up about the fact that we have to be married for this case--”

“Aw, but _Santiago,_ we have such a beautiful love story. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it’s our own dear Captain Holt who assigned us this case!” Jake grins widely and cheekily elbows her hard enough to push her off the sidewalk. “You know, your--” he lets out a dramatic moan that goes on for an uncomfortably long and he shudders for the effect. _“Rabbi.”_ Amy curses and shoves him into the nearby telephone pole, and he yelps in exaggerated pain and rubs at his aching shoulder, where there’s already a bruise forming. She turns away to hide her laugh.

“Anyways, Pineapples, ignoring your clear and vaguely disturbing authority kink, we’re both a) on a case so we have to focus--”

“Oh, boy, we’ve got a list going! There’s the woman I fell in love with!”

“--and b) stop using my actual last name; it’ll call way too much attention to us and I don’t want these people knowing my real name. My name is,” she scrambles for a moment, “Isabel. Isabel, uh… What do you want our last name to be again?”

“Smith. Oh wait, no, too obviously plain and boring-- Smath.”

Amy sighs and rubs at her temples. “For once in your life, Peralta, could you please have a plan and take this seriously?”

Jake huffs, mostly for show, and crosses his arms. “Got any better ideas, _Isabel?”_

She defiantly looks him in the eye for a moment, before sighing loudly again, relenting, and Googling “most common American surnames”. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see her partner’s triumphant smirk.

“Whatever you pick, darling, you’ve gotta be able to make a good pun out of it once we catch them.” He peers over her shoulder, which is easy because he’s over six inches taller than her (not counting his fluffy mess of hair). “Oooh, like Reid!” Jake adopts a gruff voice and a facial expression that earns him no less than five weird looks from the foot traffic around them. “Hope you’ve got a lawyer, ‘cause we’re gonna _Reid_ you your rights.”

“That’s not even good.”

The other detective rolls his eyes and casually slings an arm around her shoulder. “Just give me some time to come up with something good, my dear, dear wife. Trust me, it’ll be worth it. Like--” he scans her phone screen briefly, “like Adams! More like _ah-damns, we just caught this criminal!”_

Amy wrinkles her nose. “I’m begging you, Peralta, just quit while you’re behind.”

Jake shrugs and leans his head against hers, humming something cheerfully into her hairline. “Whatever you say, darling.” She can feel the curl of his lips against her skin, and she has to fight the urge to roll her eyes and smile as well.

* * *

They walk into the bar they’ve pegged as the most likely next target as Isabel and William Cooper. It had taken a whole additional hour of reconnaissance and arguing to figure out the names, which were picked by Amy for their difficulty to be “pun-ified” as Jake so eloquently put it.

Jake leads her up to the counter with an arm loosely draped around her waist, and her hand resting lazily against his ribs, which she can feel even through his t-shirt. They’re both dressed up (or rather down) for the occasion: a night out at a trashy bar. Jake is wearing ripped jeans (not even for fashion reasons, just because they’re ripped) and an oversized graphic tee. Amy is wearing a glittery red dress that is about a size too small for her. It’s horrendous, and Jake has somehow restrained himself from making gross comments about it, maybe because the discomfort is radiating off her in waves and it’s only when she slips into her chosen undercover persona that she manages to relax into her unfortunate clothing.

Together, they shove their way through the packed, dingy bar. The light is low, and the music is just loud enough that they have to talk loudly into each other’s ear to be both covert and audible at the same time. He loosens his grip on her waist as he levels a winning smile at the bartender, who instinctively rolls his eyes at the general overexcited vibe of the recently-wed Coopers. They’re two tourists who clearly don’t know about the type of people who go to this bar, clearly on their honeymoon, clearly absolute idiots who are going to get very drunk and then probably robbed within an inch of their life.

“What can I get for you?” The question itself is genuine, but his voice is drawling and amused. Jake, however, is not put off in the slightest; if anything, his smile widens, and Amy has to admire his dedication.

“Two whiskeys please!” Amy chimes in before Jake can get a word out, wrapping both arms around his neck and pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw, giggling for good measure. He only can shoot her a stunned, wide-eyed look before he falls back into character and beams at the bartender, despite the bright red flush rising on his cheeks.

The bartender rolls his eyes and slumps off get their drinks. “What was that?” Jake hisses down to her, grin still fixed on his face.

“That was Isabel Cooper,” Amy mutters back. “Why are you so freaked out about it, _dear?”_

“Just give me a little bit of warning next time!” Despite his indignation, she can feel him relaxing again, as if now that they’ve got some of their rapport back the weird level of physical affection is almost ignorable, even normal.

“I’m your wife, honey. We got married. You are, statistically, one hundred percent stuck with me forever,” she smirks up at him, and Jake rolls his eyes.

“We’re married, and we won’t even call each other by our real names. What kind of dysfunctional hell are we living in?” he jibes back, biting his tongue to keep himself from laughing. It’s almost sweet, except this is her jackass partner whose name she’s basically made herself forget via years of conditioning.

“Sorry, Peralta, but an abusive marriage was not in our character description. You’re stuck in this beautiful love story and perfect relationship. So _there.”_

Jake snickers, shaking his head. “That’s not even an insult, Mrs. Cooper. Marriage is a beautiful, beautiful thing, _especially_ our marriage.”

She opens her mouth to respond, but before she gets a chance, the bartender returns with their drinks.

“Can I see your driver’s license?” he asks her, seemingly exhausted by the whole concept of actual work.

“Oh, I--” she shoots a panicked glance at Jake, who looks back at her with wide eyes. “Yeah, of course,” she says, fishing it out of her purse. The bartender surveys it for a moment: the little card with her date of birth and label screaming AMY SANTIAGO at the top. Jake sighs defeatedly and scrubs a hand through his hair.

The bartender hands it back to her, chuckling wryly at the nervousness in her face. “No need to freak out. Unless there is a need to freak out.” She shakes her head and puts it back in her purse, and the man sets their drinks down on the polished wood of the counter.

When Jake fumbles through his jean pockets for his wallet, the other man simply jabs a pointer finger to a man sitting in a corner booth, who grins wolfishly at them and quirks an eyebrow.

“You’re already paid for,” the bartender says dully and pushes their drinks across the counter.

 _Shady,_ both Jake and Amy think at the exact same time.

“Great!” both Jake and Amy say aloud at the exact same time.  
  
They make their way over to the man in the corner with their drinks, Jake casually pulling her close. “Okay, so that was weird,” he mumbles into her ear, and he can feel her shrug against his side.

“You think that’s our guy?” Amy asks, leaning up onto the tips of her toes to whisper back, throwing in another bubbly laugh just to sell the whole newlywed scam.

He drags her closer by the waist and kisses the spot just above her ear. “Oh, one hundred percent.”

“I swear to God, Peralta, once we’re off this case, I’m barring you from touching me ever again. You’re having way too much fun with this,” she mutters, and Jake laughs loud and uninhibited.

“You started it, babe,” he says, much louder this time, sliding into the booth with the man, whose face is shrouded in shadow but they can still see light glinting off startlingly bright blue eyes even in the low exposure. “Married life, am I right?” he grins, rolling his eyes, and Amy sighs loudly.

“Hi. I’m Mrs. Cooper, but you can call me Isabel,” she says, extending a hand across the table, the man shakes it, and as he leans forward, she can see the scar on his forehead. Amy shoots a lightning-quick glance at Jake, and he nods imperceptibly; this is suddenly much more real than they’d thought. Marco Ianucci. Brother of Leo Ianucci.

“Marco,” he replies, his hand almost worryingly tight and solid clasping hers. “And you?” He pulls back, receding back into the natural shadows. It’s almost comedic, really. The cinematography of the whole thing. Surreally, Amy finds herself stifling a laugh.

“William Cooper,” Jake says easily, a relaxed grin on his face as he shakes Ianucci’s hand, his other arm still slung around Amy, pulling her against his side.

“But I call him Will sometimes,” Amy chimes in unnecessarily, gazing up at him with eyes so clearly fake-adoring that Jake almost bursts out laughing and kills this whole undercover thing on the spot. “He thinks it’s sweet.”

Jake buries his head in her hair and it’s a struggle not to shove him away and put him in a headlock like she would to her brothers whenever they messed with her. “You’re playing this up way too much,” he grumbles into her scalp, still brightly smiling, and she almost rolls her eyes before conceding with a tiny nod.

After that, they make small talk as much as you can with the brother of the head of a major crime family while also pretending not to know that major aspect of their life and personality. Meanwhile, Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago play the parts of William and Isabel Cooper with probably far more conviction than is strictly necessary, despite their previous agreement. Really, it was Jake who started the couple-y stuff; about a minute into the conversation he started messing with her hair, winding it around his calloused fingers over and over before letting it fall back against her scalp. Then Amy of course had to one-up him, resting her head against his shoulder and reaching a hand around his head to brush her fingers along the bones of his cheek and jaw, back and forth and back and forth.

“I hate you,” she whispered into his ear about halfway into the whole debacle, and he’d full on laughed at that.

“Aw, you know you love it, darling.”

Amy wrinkles her nose and pinches him hard on the arm, enough to make him yelp in pain and force himself to turn it into a high-pitched laugh that earns him several weird looks, especially from Marco. “You’re a dumbass,” she tells him blatantly, and he grimaces in fake offense, but his eyes are dancing with amusement.

Halfway through their conversation, Ianucci gets to his feet sharply. “I need to go to the bathroom,” he says roughly. “I’ll be back with more drinks.” He wanders away into the darker corners of the bar, walking up to the counter and talking quietly to the bartender for a moment.

Jake glances at her, tapping his fingers against the table. “Weird,” he mutters, and Amy nods, eyes fixed on Marco. They watch as he goes off into the hall leading to the bathroom.

“I’m not a fan of this,” Amy says after a few minutes of silence between them.

He nods. “Me neither. Guarantee that his next move is to invite us somewhere private so he can take our stuff. Notice how I told him I was super unsatisfied with my job? Now he’ll know I want money and he has a lot! So it’ll be super easy to convince me to go wherever he wants.”

“Subtle,” she smirks back at him, and he gasps, affronted.

“Excuse you! I am the _king_ of undercover sleuthing. We already know he’s hitting bars all across the city moving from east to west, so it makes sense that this place is next. He gets idiots to meet him somewhere, takes their stuff, knocks them out, and dumps them somewhere. Easy way to make money if you don’t wanna get a job. See? I am a top tier detective,” Jake grins, finger-gunning at her with a free hand.

Amy rolls her eyes. “Peralta, that was literally in our briefing.”

“And? My point still stands.”

She groans and opens her mouth to retort, but then Marco slides back into his seat from across from them. His eyes are alight with something different, predatory, as he pushes two more drinks across the table at them. Amy shifts uneasily in her seat but takes the drink anyway and takes a sip. It tastes normal, but as she looks back at Jake and sees her own nervousness mirrored in his eyes.

“It’s fine,” he mumbles against her hair, and she nods, pastes a massive smile onto her face, and jumps back into character.

After a few more minutes of awkward conversation, the Ianucci brother leans forward, and there’s something other than the low lights of the bar gleaming in his gaze. “So,” he says (or maybe purrs, or growls. It’s difficult to tell, but it’s enough to be vaguely disturbing). “I have to get going now. I’ve got business to attend to. But how would the two of you feel about meeting up again tomorrow night? I’ve got a proposition for the two of you that I don’t think you’ll wanna turn down. Meet me at this address,” Marco grins, sliding a slip of paper across the table, which Jake pockets. “And I’ll tell you more.”

“Seems a little shady,” Amy says in her best suspicious voice in a very blatant attempt to cover up her triumph. “You’re a stranger.”

Marco gives them a wolfish grin. “I’d say we’re well-acquainted enough.” He raps his knuckles against the table and signals for the bartender to get the two of them another round of drinks. “I’m headed off. I’ll see you two tomorrow night. That location. 9 PM. Don’t be late.” The Ianucci brother points to the card, pushes himself to his feet, and swaggers out of the bar. For a few moments, Jake and Amy watch him go.

As soon as he’s out of sight, they pump their fists simultaneously and instantly put a solid foot in between them.

“God, I don’t think I’ve touched someone for that long in my life,” Amy grumbles, arm tingling from where it fell asleep and almost uncomfortably warm all over her body.

Jake laughs and softly punches her arm. “Yeah, Santiago, we all know two seconds was your standing record.” She levels a glare at him, and he laughs again, louder this time. “C’mon, you walked into that one!”

Amy groans and repeatedly bangs her head against the back of the booth, squeezing her eyes shut. “You’re an idiot.”

“That’s your best comeback for that? One of these days you’re gonna have to come up with some better material, wifey.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Ooooh, cracking open the insult thesaurus. Things are getting real around here.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales softly. “I’m going home, Pineapples. And you’re paying for the taxi. Be a gentleman for once.”

Jake whines softly as they slowly wander out of the bar, weaving through the loose crowd of people. “But darling, gender roles are so constricting. You should pay. Equal rights!”

“Just say you’re in crushing debt, Peralta.”

He huffs. “You’re going to expose our characters! I’ll have you know I’m a very well-to-do and charismatic gentleman named William Cooper who has all the cash he needs to pay for his frigid, awful, un-woke, and emotionally inept wife’s cab.”  
  
Amy is coldly silent at that, harshly tugging down the hem of her dress. She refuses to look him in the eye even as he waves down a cab and opens the door for her. His heart sinks, because, yeah, that was a line right there, and he probably (okay, definitely) shouldn’t have crossed it. He knows that-- and normally he’s so good at sensing when he’s wandering too near it, but he can’t always fully control what comes out of his mouth anyway. Reckless and rude: such is the life and manner of Jacob Peralta. Not an excuse but an explanation, and either way Amy won’t look at him anymore, and he can see her fists clenching and her knuckles whitening.

Once they’re seated inside, he murmurs, “I’m sorry. That was out of line. I don’t-- I don’t actually think that.”

“Yeah, okay,” she mutters, eyes downcast. “Don’t worry about it.”

Jake bites his lip anxiously and places a hesitant hand on her shoulder, and she finally looks at him with a tired smile on her face. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and he’s not good at emotions, but he’s trying. Amy nods and lets his hand stay there for a moment before gently shrugging him off.

Silence for a second, not quite peaceful, but thankfully not too tense either.

Hesitantly: “Listen, since all is forgiven and our marriage is, like, rock solid again... the heat is kind of totally out at my apartment because I forgot to pay my bill again, so can I crash at your place? I’ll sleep on the couch. You don’t even have to give me a blanket. And since we’re technically on a case and we’re undercover, we’re totally cleared to not go into work tomorrow. Plus we’re _married!_ Please be the kind, compassionate Isabel Cooper I fell in love with and let me sleep on your weirdly nice and comfy couch!”

He’s all puppy-dog eyes and hopeful half-grins, and Amy rolls her eyes at his earnest expression but smiles. “Fine, fine. But I _am_ going to work tomorrow.”

“A) I expect no less from you, b) you shouldn’t because you’re probably going to be at least a little hungover, c) I’m still going to try my absolute best to keep you from going to work, and d) aren’t you proud of me? I’m talking to you through lists.”

Amy laughs and reaches over to squeeze his shoulder in a new, silent forgiveness. “You’re probably right about at least the hangover part, but just let me pretend. It’s the least you can do.”

Jake huffs out a laugh and smiles in the darkness of the cab.

* * *

When Jake wakes up in the morning to shafts of sunlight streaming in through half-closed curtains, he’s sprawled on the bed instead of the couch, and there’s something kind of warm against him, and for a moment he’s almost confused.

“What’s going on?” he mumbles, blinking blearily, and rolls over to find a rumpled Amy Santiago still fully dressed in her too-small red dress, which has left glitter all over his skin and clothes and her bedsheets and hair.

She’s still snoring softly, curled up against his side with her arms tucked up by her chin. It cuts such a striking contrast in imagery to the firebrand woman he works with, constantly teasing him and being an intense kind of intelligent and dorky, that he pauses and just looks at her for a moment instead of nudging her awake. The early morning sun makes her skin seem almost golden, and a strand of her hair is stuck to her lips, fluttering with every one of her breaths. Her fingers brush his neck lightly and almost infinitesimally as she just barely stirs with each inhale and exhale. He’s frozen for a moment. There’s something in his chest, trapped under his skin, warm and gentle and persistent as the sunlight through the window. Jake exhales forcefully as if expelling the air from his lungs will expel the thoughts, too (they don’t, because that’s not how physics or biology works), pushes himself up onto an elbow, and taps Amy’s shoulder lightly.

“Santiago,” he whispers, tapping her again. She twitches violently and blinks open her eyes. For a moment, his initial confusion of waking up in a bed with his coworker is mirrored in her eyes.

“What the hell are you doing in my bed?”

Jake shrugs, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and pushing his fingers through his ruffled hair. Behind him, Amy quickly puts her hair up into a ponytail (albeit a messy, sleep-rumpled one) and jumps off the bed, landing with a graceless thud. There’s a headache drumming at their skulls, but it’s not as bad as they thought it would be, so they both elect to ignore it at the exact same time.

Vaguely, in fits and bursts, Jake recalls wobbling his way out of the cab as the alcohol finally fully hit them both, gripping an even more unsteady Amy by the arm to keep her from falling or otherwise making herself “look more ridiculous than normal”, as he’d told her, and she’d sighed with fake exasperation, shoved him away, and almost instantly fell over. He’d laughed, then, a little too loud for a chilly midnight in the depths of Brooklyn, and helped her up. He can remember guiding her through her apartment, both of them cracking jokes at each other that don’t fully make sense, the laughter bubbling constantly in his chest and throat and stomach. He remembers Amy collapsing onto her bed and him falling down next to her, his weight almost bouncing her off, which had sent them into another burst of hilarity. He remembers curling up in the bedding and groaning loudly when his coworker tried to shove him off until she finally relented with an entirely out-of-the-norm giggle and instead fell against him, swatting him when he laughed at her again. He remembers falling asleep quickly and dreamlessly for the first time in maybe months. Something in his gut clenches, and like most things, he pushes it aside.

“I don’t know,” he tells her, instead, and she sighs.

“God, Peralta, you and your goldfish brain,” she mutters, brushing stray hairs out of her eyes.

“Hey, you don’t remember either!” he protests, scrambling to his feet and surveying his outfit. “Ugh. I forgot how gross this stuff was. I look like a frat boy/hipster combo who doesn’t know how to dress himself.”

“Half of your clothes are stained with orange soda. How is this possibly below that bar?”

“Okay, three-quarters, don’t sell me short. And touche,” Jake smirks, finger gunning at her like he’s somehow won this argument, and Amy shakes her head and sighs with an exasperated fondness that is almost painfully familiar.

She picks some clothes from the dresser and shoos him out of the room. “Get out of here, Pineapples. I don’t want your orange soda frat boy stink in here anymore.”

“Just say you want to change clothes. You don’t need to be so _mean_ about it,” he complains, already shuffling out of the room, and the door clicks shut behind him. Curiously, he surveys his coworker’s apartment: doily-covered, neat, clean furniture, polished and dusted wood dining table and chairs.

 _Predictable,_ Jake thinks with a grin, trailing a finger along the immaculate coffee table in her living room. Briefly, he considers going home, getting changed, sleeping some more, maybe eating some food so he can come back fresh to this whole undercover gig.

But then he looks around the almost weirdly clean apartment again, the sun streaming in through the windows, the coffeemaker on the counter, the plant she’s put on the windowsill to make the place look more modern (it’s not working, but it’s kind of funny that she tried), and shrugs to himself. He’d have way more fun annoying the hell out of his often-uptight but mostly just smart and funny detective partner than he would conked out in his own apartment. So he settles himself into the couch and waits for her to come out of her bedroom.

They spend the entire day in her apartment, dragging old board games out of Amy’s many cabinets and accusing each other of cheating, trying and failing horrendously to cook a three-course meal from her meager kitchen supplies, watching movies and just… talking.

It’s comfortable and nice in a way that Jake is almost unnerved by, so he covers it up with more and more absurd jokes and deflections. Amy looks at him funny whenever he tries to defuse a situation that doesn’t really need defusing, but at the same time she’s almost understanding, and doesn’t question the relief in his eyes when she lets him change the subject. There’s this tense undercurrent running through their easy, relaxed banter that nobody wants to examine (and normally it would be hard; they’re detectives no matter what, but it’s so much simpler to deflect, to laugh, to tease than it is to acknowledge the way Jake practically _jumps_ whenever Amy’s fingers brush his shoulder or the shiver that runs down her spine when she sees the fleeting look in his eyes that she doesn’t really know how to describe).

It’s the kind of day that stretches out endlessly but in the best way possible, all warmth and laughter and half-sunlight and throwing little plastic game pieces at each other. Eventually, though, it does end.

“What? Why are you laughing, Peralta? You put salt instead of sugar in some biscuits once--”

“It’s just so dumb, Santiago, I love it-- hey, speaking of dinner, we should probably eat something and get ready for a fun night on the town.” Jake props himself up on the couch, laughter finally tapering off as Amy freezes for a moment.

“Shit--- I totally forgot,” she yelps, jolting to her feet as if struck by lightning and throwing a pack of cards laying on the ground at a bemused Jake, which hits him in the chest and bounces off to the ground again. “Put that away, I need to get into a trashy dress before we go.”

“Once all of this is over, I’m gonna need a full explanation about why you own so many of those things,” he shouts after her as she skitters back into her room.

“Shut up, Peralta!” she yells from behind the closed door, and Jake chuckles fondly, running a hand through ruffled hair.

He calls, “Hey, you think I should change out of last night’s clothes before we go meet our guy?”

A loud sigh from behind Amy’s door and a long silence before “yes, Peralta, obviously you should change,” at which Jake snorts.

“You seem awfully sure that I packed any other clothes,” he says, and Amy emerges in another dress that she would never let herself be seen in during daylight hours, this time black.

“You’re hopeless,” she mutters, grinning, and he grins back.

“Can I just borrow one of your t-shirts?” Jake asks, and Amy rolls her eyes but goes back into her room, throwing a shirt at him from the hallway. It hits him in the face, and he peels it off and unfolds it to find a comically oversized graphic tee proudly blazoned “Mathlete MVP: Queen of Quadratics” in comic sans.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Amy snaps uselessly, because by then Jake isn’t even trying to muffle his laughter, mirth rolling off of him in waves.

He pulls the new shirt on over his old one, still chuckling. “God, this is so great. Have you changed at all since high school?”

“Yes, now I weather entire days in my apartment with assholes so I can take down crime bosses in the evenings,” she grumbles, dragging him to his feet. “I genuinely have no idea why Isabel stooped low enough to marry you.”

“William Cooper is way out of your league!” Jake protests, attempting to glamorously flip his short, curly hair with very little success. “You told him that the first night you had sex with him, and he disagreed just to be nice.”

Amy scoffs. “Please. If anything, Isabel’s way out of your league. You saw her once at a bar, and you almost started crying because you’d never seen a woman that beautiful, and then you begged her to come home with you, and she agreed because she felt sorry for you. Then somehow she fell in love. Miraculous.”

“That’s not our story,” he complains, grinning nonetheless. “Anyways, we’re way out of _each other’s_ leagues.”

“That’s literally not possible, Peralta,” Amy mutters, but there’s a smile creeping across her face too.

 _“Love_ is impossible,” Jake shoots back, grin turning into something a little softer, offset by the teasing mirth dancing in his eyes. “It’s not supposed to make sense.”

She snorts. “Poetic. Where’d you pick that up, a shitty rom-com?”

“Yep. I’m also pretty sure I messed the quote up.”

“Yeah, that checks out.”

* * *

By the time they’re getting out of Jake’s old dump of a car in an empty lot a quarter mile away from any street, they’re back to squabbling pettily.

“Why the hell didn’t you call for backup?” Amy hisses into his ear. “You know Ianucci probably has tons of his people around, waiting for us to make a move.”

“I didn’t remember! Also, he might not,” Jake growls back, pulling his phone out of his pocket and typing furiously. “They’ll be here in twenty minutes,” he grumbles, pocketing it again. “Stop worrying, Santiago.” His voice is gruff and annoyed, but then he looks back at his fake wife to see genuine anxiety in her eyes. “Hey,” he says more softly, gently touching her bare shoulder. “It’ll be okay. We’re good at this.”

She shakes herself, trying to get the tension out. “Yeah.” A fleeting smile from both of them. “I know.”

They launch themselves back into character. “Hello?” Jake calls. “Anyone around here?”

A man slinks forward, holding an empty bag. “Mr. and Mrs. Cooper.”

“Marco!” Jake says warmly, holding out a hand to shake. Ianucci does so, a calm smile on his face.

“Why’d you tell us to come here?” Amy asks brightly, leaning against Jake’s side, and for a moment, the crime boss’ smile widens.

They’re expecting another question. They’re expecting a trick. They’re expecting some long, winding answer. They’re expecting a monologue.

They one hundred percent are _not_ expecting Marco Ianucci to pull out a gun and level it at both of them.

“Drop your weapons,” he growls. “Amy Santiago and… whoever the hell _you_ are.”

Jake almost protests, but when he opens his mouth, Marco advances on them with three quick, purposeful strides. Amy hisses out a curse and pulls her pistol out of her purse, tossing it on the ground. Jake follows suit with another curse.

“So. The two of you are cops.” He stoops to pick up their guns and places them in the bag. “I also want your wallets and any valuables. I’m assuming you called for backup, but probably just as an afterthought-- you both seem pretty sloppy. It’ll take them quite a while to get here, am I right?”

Jake swears again and fishes his wallet and phone out of his pocket, hands in the air. Amy does the same, biting down on her lip anxiously.

“What’s your plan?” she asks Marco as evenly as she can, and he laughs dryly.

“If you don’t give me any trouble, then not much will happen to you. You just have to drop the case and give me immunity. Easy as that. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, but I won’t give the two of you any issues.” He grins, wry and dark. “Now if you mess things up here, then I shoot one or both of you and leave you in some gutter to die. It’s up to you. Either way--” the Ianucci brother darts forward and grabs Amy by the wrist, dragging her close and holding the gun up to her temple. “Agree to my terms or she dies.”

Jake freezes and backs up on instinct. “Marco,” he says as firmly as he can. “That right there-- not a good negotiation tactic,” but his voice is just unsteady enough for the other man to notice with lips curling up at the edges and revealing yellowing teeth.

“Like I said-- you drop the case and charges and give me absolute immunity and we’re good.”

“Marco, you’ve literally been attacking and robbing civilians across New York City. That’s pretty hard to drop.” He can feel his hands shaking, just watching Amy squirm, trying to tilt her head away from the cold barrel of the gun. “Let her go,” Jake growls out, barely even aware of the words leaving his mouth except that now they hover in the air, sharp and cold.

Amy meets his eyes and he can see the fear she’s trying to hide in her physicality clear in her gaze. _Please,_ she mouths, and her eyes flick towards Marco. _I’m not going to let you get shot,_ Jake thinks as hard as he can and hopes it translates in his expression. Her brows furrow, and her eyes dart down to the ground and back up, scanning the area and Ianucci.

“What d’you say, _Mr. Cooper?”_ Marco drawls, somehow relaxed even in this hostage situation, gun to a woman’s head. “We got a deal?” Amy’s eyes narrow.

Jake doesn’t take his eyes off of Amy, chest tightening. _Please don’t get hurt,_ he thinks.

Instead of giving a real response, he forces a laugh out of his throat, strangled and harsh. “Sure.”

“I’m glad we could cooperate on this.”

 _What a stereotype,_ Jake and Amy think at the exact same time.

There’s a moment of choked-off silence, the Ianucci brother with his gun steady at Amy’s head, the two detectives staring at each other from across a divide that feels so much greater than any distances they’ve ever known before, damp, dirty cement between them, the flickering streetlights so far away providing a dim light.

(Jake Peralta is suffocating and he doesn’t know why; he doesn’t understand it. He isn’t the one with a gun to his head; he needs to keep his head on straight, needs to be ready, needs to act and move and _save his partner._ But all he can see is the cold metal-plastic glint of a firearm, the quiet panic in Amy Santiago’s wide, dark eyes, and the inevitable future of blood, blood pouring from a hold in her head.)

Marco shifts his weight on the pavement, and Jake nods, just barely:  _I’m ready._

Amy ducks smoothly, almost too fast for his eyes to track, grabs Ianucci’s gun arm and points it away from her before kicking his legs out from under him. Marco collapses to the ground and Jake races up to stand next to Amy, who fumbles to pull her gun out of the bag. For a moment, relief floods him, so much that it almost drowns out his breath.

And then, the small tensing of the Ianucci brother’s muscles, the ever-so-slight tilt up of his pistol.

He can’t think.

He moves as fast as he can, shields one body with another, hands outstretched.

Another body hits the cement, hard, and stays there.

* * *

The first thing Jake feels is, predictably, the pain. A sharp, aching agony in his torso, and fire in his lungs.

“Peralta?” someone says, panic clear in their voice. _“Peralta?_ Fuck--”

He squeezes his eyes shut and then open. Everything hurts-- every movement, every breath, hell, even his heartbeat hurts. “What--” Jake gasps out, trying to lift himself up on an elbow.

“Stay down,” the same person says, a little too loud, and he winces at the words harsh against his ears.

He forces himself to look around. Even the distant light from the streetlamps hurts his eyes, and it’s a struggle to take everything in.

“What happened?” he rasps, blinking quickly. “What--”

The figure appears above him, hands flitting around anxiously. “Just-- stay down, Peralta, catch your breath, I called an ambulance, you’ll be--”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, just takes a deep, gulping breath, chest shuddering.

“Put pressure on the wound,” Jake whispers, and above him, Amy nods, pressing down. He lets out a quiet whimper of pain that he might have been ashamed of if he wasn’t literally bleeding out.

“You were shot in the chest,” Amy tells him quietly, keeping her eyes fixed on his face and far away from the wound.

“I can’t believe I’m about to die in a-- a fucking  _Mathletes_ shirt, Santiago,” he cracks halfheartedly, and immediately regrets it. Something in his partner’s gaze cracks in that moment, and he can suddenly see her eyes glimmering with unshed tears, can feel his blood soaking onto her hands and into the awful dress she had to wear for this.

“Don’t fucking say that,” she chokes out, breath forced from her lungs, and the words feel like a gunshot splitting the air. “You’re not going to-- don’t you _dare_ fucking say that.”

Jake lifts up a faltering hand to cover hers and winces again when he feels his slick blood staining her smaller fingers. “It’ll be okay,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut to steady himself. “Just a bullet wound. I’ll walk it off.”

Amy lets out a strangled little laugh. “God, you’re an idiot, Peralta.”

He smiles weakly, lips twitching up at the corner. “That your mantra or something?”

“Yeah, it keeps me sane,” she responds, and he can see a tear slip from her eye. Jake wishes he could reach up and brush it away.

The pain in his chest is almost numbing now with its agony.

 _“Amy,”_ he breathes out, eyelids fluttering as he struggles to keep them open, “it hurts-- please, just--” He doesn’t know what he’s begging for. Sleep. Safety. A guarantee that this isn’t _it,_ that he won’t bleed out wearing two shitty tee shirts in an abandoned parking lot next to a knocked out criminal with his annoying, smart-ass, brilliant partner-- his _friend--_ holding onto him like her hand knotted up in the fabric of the shirt will be enough to keep him here.

“Stay here, Jake,” Amy hisses, and there are the tears again. She brings up her other hand to grab his face none too gently. “You’re not dying on me, jackass. You’re not done, you’ve still got a bet to lose, too many cases to solve, coworkers to annoy, people to prank, captains to piss off. You’re not dying, okay? You hear me?”

He does, and he’s trying to listen, too. “Y-yeah--” he manages to push out through gritted teeth and constricted lungs. “Yeah.”

Far away, they can hear the sound of sirens.

* * *

Something is gripping his hand.  


Jake blinks lethargically, everything blurred at the edges. “H’llo?” he slurs out. He can’t move, really, but achingly slow, he turns his head to the side. As if from miles away, he sees Amy Santiago. He can feel a smile curling up at the edge of his lips before faltering and fading away.

Amy, for her part, jolts away, instantly dropping his hand. “Hi,” she says curtly, twisting her fingers together anxiously. He smiles again. There are tears staining her red cheeks.

“I’m alive,” he says, as much of a question as it is a statement.

“Yeah,” she replies quietly. “You are.”

“Hey,” he murmurs, lifting up his hand again, and it feels like the weight of the world pressing down on his palm, his knuckles, his fingers. “It’s okay, Ames.” It feels natural on his tongue, this unfamiliar name, and his lips are turning up at the feeling.

For the first time, Amy smiles back. “Yeah,” she whispers, and reaches out to touch his hand again, lightly this time. “It is, Jake.”

**Author's Note:**

> hey thanks for reading guys! if you enjoyed this or have any constructive criticism or ANYTHING just drop me a comment down below! thank you again!! my tumblr is fishycorvid by the way, feel free to hmu


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